Nine to Five
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| Nine to Five | |
|---|---|
| Image:9 to 5 moviep.jpg original movie poster | |
| Directed by | Colin Higgins |
| Produced by | Bruce Gilbert |
| Written by | Patricia Resnick Colin Higgins |
| Starring | Jane Fonda Lily Tomlin Dolly Parton Dabney Coleman Elizabeth Wilson Marian Mercer Colin Higgins |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | December 19, 1980 (USA) |
| Running time | 110 min. |
| Language | English French |
| IMDb profile | |
Nine to Five, also known as 9 to 5, is a 1980 comedy movie starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, and Dabney Coleman and a television series of the same name starring Rachel Dennison, Rita Moreno, and Valerie Curtin.
It is about three working women living out the fantasy of getting even with, and their successful overthrow of, the company's autocratic, "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot" boss.
Nine to Five was an across the board hit, grossing USD$103,290,500 in the U.S. alone.
This film is number 47 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies".
Contents |
[edit] Premise
Three women are victimized by "the system" and their boss (Coleman) in a large, heartless American corporation called Consolidated. Violet (Tomlin) is passed up for promotions she rightly deserves, Doralee (Parton) is lusted after by her lascivious boss and Judy (Fonda), recently returning to work after her husband leaves her for a younger woman, is shocked by the events going on around her, but, being a new hire, is powerless to do anything.
[edit] Plot
The movie's plot centers around Franklin Hart, Jr., a sexist, misogynistic, chauvinistic, and criminally unscrupulous businessman and three of the employees in his office: Violet Newstead, Doralee Rhodes, and Judy Bernly.
Violet is a supervisor at Consolidated who, despite her seniority over Hart and her superior knowledge of the company's internal dynamics, is referred to as 'my girl' by Hart. Even though Violet trained Hart she still has to fetch his coffee. Violet bristles at Hart's treatment of her, as well as his supposed relationship with Doralee. But she puts on a sweet demeanor because she is being considered for a promotion, a fact of which Hart reminds her when she attempts to protest his request to buy his wife a scarf for her birthday. She is a widowed mother of four and is caring for her mother as well. Her attempts to impress the upper-level managers and ensure her promotion are stymied by Hart's blatant theft of her suggestions and presentation of the ideas as his own, with a suggestion of sexist discrimination.
Doralee, his happily married (and truthful) personal assistant, is constantly sexually harassed by Hart, to her fury. He has been conspiring for some time to engage in an affair with Doralee, and in the meantime has convinced most of the staff that he has, in fact, consummated such an affair. The female staff, as a result, shun Doralee despite her attempts to be friendly; Judy especially is offended by the rumors, and although she is initially charmed by Doralee's warm offer of assistance and friendship, she pushes Doralee away when she hears of the alleged affair.
Judy is a divorcee whose new job is her first; her husband left her for his secretary, which is the source of her frosty attitude towards Doralee. Although she attempts to convince her co-workers that she knows how to do her job, she has difficulty operating any of the equipment: even the Rolodex seems beyond her skills. Hart was initially charming and friendly during her interview, but she sees his true colors when he demeans her intelligence after she loses control of the copy machine. Later, angry over a rebuff by Doralee, Hart orders secretary Maria Delgado fired for the minor infraction of disclosing her salary to a co-worker, as well as estimating the salary of both Hart and Roz Keith, Hart's administrative assistant. Judy, normally soft-spoken, resolves to do something about the situation.
The women begin to form a tight bond after Violet is passed over for her promotion in favor of a man, Doralee discovers the rumors Hart has been spreading about her, and Judy's outrage over Maria being fired, all in the same day. In their anger, all three leave the office early and end up at Doralee's apartment eating and sharing the marijuana joint that Violet's son gave her in an attempt to help his mother relax. As they smoke and eat, Judy fantasizes about pursuing Hart through the office with a shotgun like a big game hunter and mounting his head on the wall; Doralee dreams of humiliating Hart as a piece of meat ("giving him a taste of his own medicine") before lassoing and tying him up; and Violet imagines that she is Snow White, but rather than being poisoned, she poisons Hart and tips him out the window of his office.
The next day, Violet is rudely ordered by Hart to fetch him coffee; while preparing the coffee, she is told by a co-worker "we're out of Skinny & Sweet" (an artificial sweetner). Violet says "I know, I got some at lunch today" and pulls a fresh box from the cupboard. However, in her distraction and anger at having to fetch Hart's coffee, she accidentally pours the box of rat poison she had purchased earlier into the coffee rather than the Skinny & Sweet (the boxes of rat poison and Skinny & Sweet are similar in size, shape, colour and design, which leads to Violet's mistake.)
Hart falls off his defective chair, hitting his head on the credenza before he is able to drink any of the tainted coffee, spilling it on the floor; he is then discovered by Doralee who informs the others. Violet discovers her mistake and, finding the cup empty next to the chair, presumes Hart was poisoned by the coffee. Violet all but drags Judy to the hospital, meeting Doralee there, as she apparently accompanied the ambulance and their stricken employer.
At the hospital, Hart is told he will have to have an X-ray examination to ensure his cranial health; he refuses, saying he does not wish to pay further hospital bills. He leaves unseen by the girls, his room taken by a man with severe heart problems, who then dies. The man who dies was accompanied by a policeman and detective, who had been waiting for him to testify in a criminal case.
Seeing the authorities outside what they believe to be Hart's hospital room, the three women assume that Hart's 'poisoning' has been reported to law enforcement. When the corpse of the other man is seen being wheeled out of the room, Violet panics, believing it to be Hart's body. She impersonates a doctor and steals the body, dumping the corpse in the trunk of her car and driving off as soon as the others reach her. Because the women are panicking, Violet ends up crashing the car, bending the front fender. Doralee goes to retrieve a tire iron from the trunk in order to free the bumper from the wheel; the corpse's head has apparently become uncovered, because she can see that it is not Hart.
Many adventures later, the corpse is deposited in the toilets of the hospital in a wheelchair, and the three return to work. In the restroom at work, they discuss the previous night's escapades; they are unaware of Roz lurking in the stalls, taking notes on toilet paper. Hart receives the information with glee and decides to blackmail Doralee into having sex with him. Instead of succumbing to his threats, Doralee ties him up with telephone cord, and leaves Judy to guard him in order to get Violet. Judy sets him free, having been fooled by his cries of pain and promises to be reasonable. She then shoots the doorway around him - with the gun given to her by Doralee - when he goes to find a working telephone.
At Hart's home (absent is his wife Missy, who is on a two-month cruise to Tahiti), the three women imprison him with a system of pulleys and ropes attached to a garage door opener assembled by Violet. While Hart is imprisoned, the three look for something with which to reverse-blackmail him, and find the perfect thing: records of company supplies being sold for Hart's personal gain (they were supposed to be stored at Ajax Warehouse, though it is actually empty). They merely have to wait until documents confirming his guilt can arrive from somewhere in a week or so, and they will have Hart at their mercy.
But there is a wrinkle: head office informs Violet that due to the start of "the computer changeover", they will not be able to send her the needed warehouse invoices for 4-6 weeks - and Hart will need to be confined the entire time. But this proves to be less difficult than originally thought, as the women quickly discover that no one in the office wants to see or deal with Hart, with the exception being Roz, who keeps asking to see him. The women manage to send her away for several weeks to a language school to learn French as part of a "top-secret" initiative. Roz complies, believing the directive to be from Hart.
Using the fact that Doralee can forge Hart's signature, the three women take control of the company, instituting many family-friendly policies like flexible hours, day care, drug and alcohol counseling, and allowance of personal items at people's work stations. Working conditions and morale improve, increasing productivity by 20% over the ensuing six weeks.
One evening, while she is guarding Hart, Judy receives a visit from her ex-husband, Dick, who has ended his affair with his secretary and hopes to make up with Judy. However, those hopes are dashed when he sees Hart tied up, and he's led to think Judy has a new hobby: bondage. Judy pretends she really is into all of it just to get him out of the house.
Hart gets free on occasion, though never successfully thwarts the restraint system. Then his wife Missy arrives home early and frees him, unbeknownst to the protagonists. Doralee learns of Missy's return quite inadvertently, as Missy phones Doralee from a hotel to thank her for flowers she sent to Missy in Hart's name. Doralee calls Judy in a panic, warning her that Hart is just pretending to still be confined. Judy is doubtful, having just given him his meal and seeing that he was still "tied up as always". Doralee arrives at the house to find Hart free - with Judy at gunpoint. Meanwhile, Violet goes to check the warehouse; sure enough, Hart has filled the warehouse with the missing supplies to cover his crime. Dejected, Violet returns to the office.
Judy and Doralee are joined by Violet at Consolidated and the women are resigned to their fate. Meanwhile, Russell Tinsworthy (played by Sterling Hayden), the Chairman of the Board, arrives at Consolidated flanked by senior executives. Having noticed the 20% rise in productivity (even the recovery of the alcoholic Margaret Foster), he is looking to "meet the man responsible". Hart panics, as he has no idea how to explain everything and tells a listless Violet "you've got to stand by me!" Violet realizes she has the advantage and happily shows the executives the day care center, the new job-sharing program in action (with Maria back on the job), and other revisions.
After the tour of the newly-revamped offices, and in light of the great things the senior executives have believed Hart to have accomplished, Hart is offered a promotion to run the office in Brazil for a few years. Hart realizes that he is trapped; he cannot reveal the women's machinations without admitting the productivity increase is due to them, not him. One issue that causes the women to exchange worried glances is Tinsworthy's comment to Hart that the "equal pay is all right as an incentive" indicating that he isn't supportive of the practice becoming permanent.
The women are later seen breaking open a bottle of champagne in Hart's now-vacant office, celebrating having gotten rid of him, who could not refuse the Chairman's offer of a promotion. Just then, Roz walks in, speaking perfect French. She takes in the sight of the women drinking and, astonished, simply states: "holy merde!" The women dissolve into giggles and the credits roll.
In the epilogue of the film, we learn that Doralee leaves the company and becomes a country-and-western singer; Violet is promoted to Vice President; Judy quits the company when she marries the Xerox representative; and Franklin Hart Jr. is abducted by a tribe of Amazons in the Brazilian jungle and is never heard from again.
[edit] Television series
The movie inspired a sitcom version which aired from 1982 to 1983 and from 1986 to 1988. The show, which aired on ABC (1982-83) and in first run syndication (1986-88), featured Parton's younger sister, Rachel Dennison, in Parton's role; Rita Moreno and Valerie Curtin took over Tomlin and Fonda's roles, respectively. In the second version of the show, Sally Struthers replaced Moreno.
[edit] Trivia
- The movie's theme song, "9 to 5", became one of Parton's biggest hits of the decade. It went to number one for two weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 was nominated for several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Song. It won the 1981 People's Choice Award for "Favorite Motion Picture Song", and two 1982 Grammy awards (for "Country Song of the Year" and "Female Country Vocal of the Year".)
- At the same time, newcomer Sheena Easton was enjoying her first major hit in United Kingdom with a song also titled "9 to 5". Due to the success of Parton's song, Easton was forced to rename her recording "Morning Train (9 to 5)" for its North American release.
- This was Dolly Parton's first film.
- In the middle of the film, Dolly Parton and her colleagues send a nosy manager to the Aspen Language Center in Colorado to learn French. The particular TWA 747 shown in the film later was used in reality on the ill-fated flight of TWA 800, which exploded off of Long Island, NY.
- In her autobiograhy, My Life So Far, Jane Fonda wrote that Dolly Parton committed the entire movie script to memory prior to the commencement of shooting, not realizing that she only needed to know her own dialogue.
[edit] Possible sequel
In a TV interview broadcast on BBC1 in the UK in 2005, the movie's stars Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton all expressed interest in starring in a sequel. Fonda said if the right script was written she would definitely do it, suggesting a suitable name for a 21st century sequel would be 24/7. Parton suggested they had better hurry up before they reach retirement age. In the DVD commentary, the three reiterate their enthusiasm, Fonda suggests a sequel should cover outsourcing, and they agree Frank Hart would have to return as their nemesis.
[edit] Musical theatre
On an interview aired 30 September 2005 of the CNN's Larry King Live, Parton revealed that she was writing the songs for a musical stage adaptation of the film 9 to 5. A workshop for the show is expected to start in summer 2006 with the play to premiere in fall 2007.[1]
